Quick Bio
| Detail | Info |
| Full Name | Caroline Elisabeth Hessberg (Smedvig) |
| Nickname | “Kim” |
| Born | May 31, 1953, Albany, New York |
| Zodiac | Gemini |
| Education | Albany Academy for Girls → Smith College (Class of 1975) |
| Career | Journalist → PR/Marketing Director, Boston Symphony Orchestra (1980–2004) |
| First Husband | Rolf Thorstein Smedvig (trumpeter, BSO) |
| Second Husband | James Taylor (married Feb. 18, 2001) |
| Children | Twin sons Rufus and Henry (born April 2001, via surrogacy) |
| Residence | Lenox, Massachusetts |
| Current Role | BSO Trustee; author; sometime backup singer |
She’s Not Just “James Taylor’s Wife.” But Let’s Be Honest — That’s Why You’re Here.
Let’s start with the thing nobody wants to say out loud: most people had zero idea who Caroline Smedvig was until they Googled her husband. That’s fine. That’s honest. But if you actually sit with her story for five minutes, something shifts.
This is a woman who spent 25 years running communications for one of America’s most elite orchestras. She co-wrote a book. She sang in the Tanglewood Festival Chorus — not as a hobby, but seriously. She was a working journalist before any of that.
And then she married James Taylor.
The sequence matters. She wasn’t built by the relationship. She showed up to it already formed.
See also “Julie Farrait: The Woman Harlem’s Kingpin Couldn’t Live Without — And Couldn’t Keep Out of Prison“
Albany, Lawyers, and a Family That Ran Deep
She grew up in Albany, New York — daughter of Albert Hessberg II, a Yale-educated senior partner at the law firm Hiscock & Barclay. Her mother was Elisabeth Fitzsimons Goold. There were two brothers: Philip and Albert III.
Albany in the 1950s wasn’t exactly a cultural capital. But her family had roots everywhere in that city — legal, medical, civic. Her father sat on the Albany Medical Center board. People in Albany knew the Hessbergs.
She attended Albany Academy for Girls, a school built around producing exactly the kind of focused, independent women Caroline would become. She graduated in 1971. Then off to Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts — done by 1975.
Serious school. Serious family. Serious upbringing.
Her mother died in 1991. Her father followed in 1995, after a battle with cancer. By the time she married James Taylor, both parents were already gone. That detail sits quietly in the background of everything else.
She Worked Before Anyone Cared to Notice
Here’s where things get actually interesting. While still a college student, Caroline was already working at the Knickerbocker News in Albany as a part-time reporter. Not interning. Working.
Post-graduation she moved to the Springfield Daily News as an afternoon reporter. Had stints with The Associated Press. Did time as an intern at the New York Times. The woman covered real ground in journalism before pivoting entirely.
- She joins the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
This is a move that would define the next quarter century of her life. She came in handling public relations and marketing — the kind of work that sounds boring until you realize she was responsible for how one of the oldest, most prestigious orchestras in America told its story to the world.
She didn’t just manage press releases. She shaped how BSO connected with audiences during a critical era for classical music. She stayed for 25 years. Director of PR and Marketing. A job she left in 2004 — only after life changed significantly.
Nobody gave her that career because she was charming at parties.
The First Marriage Nobody Talks About
Before James Taylor, there was Rolf.
Rolf Thorstein Smedvig was a classical trumpeter — and not some local hobbyist. He was the principal trumpet at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He’d been the youngest member ever admitted to the BSO when he joined at 19. He co-founded the Empire Brass quintet. Leonard Bernstein personally chose him to perform at the Kennedy Center opening.
Caroline and Rolf married in December 1980. Both were working at the BSO. They shared a world. On paper, that sounds solid.
It didn’t last. They divorced quietly. Rolf went on to remarry and continue an extraordinary career in classical music. He died in April 2015. There was no public drama from Caroline’s side — before or after.
What she did keep was the name. “Smedvig” stuck. And when she married James Taylor, many people started calling her “Kim Taylor” or just “Kim Smedvig.” The internet has cycled through every variation of her name depending on what article you read.
Symphony Hall, 1993. A Meeting That Changed Everything.
James Taylor came to perform with John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra. Caroline was there in her capacity as PR director for the BSO.
They met. They talked. That was it for a while.
He was still married at the time — his second wife, actress Kathryn Walker. So nothing happened immediately. These were adults with real lives. They waited. Two years passed. Both situations were resolved.
July 3, 1995. First date.
The next day was Independence Day. And James Taylor, being exactly the kind of person he is, turned that timing into a song. “On the 4th of July” — written about a first date that happened the night before. That’s either very romantic or very songwriter. Maybe both.
They didn’t rush after that either. Six years of dating before they made it official.
February 18, 2001. Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston. Around 50 people were in attendance. No spectacle. Barely any press. His third marriage, her second. Two people who had clearly learned from previous chapters.
The Twins. The Surrogacy. The Part That Doesn’t Get Enough Credit.
Having children wasn’t straightforward. Caroline couldn’t carry it naturally. They turned to surrogacy — a choice that in 2000 still carried a certain social weight that it doesn’t carry quite as much today.
In April 2001, twin boys arrived. Rufus and Henry Taylor.
Consider the timeline: they married in February, and the boys were born in April of the same year. The surrogate had already been pregnant. The family was already beginning before the wedding was legally complete.
Henry has since performed on stage with his father — backup vocals, the same role his mother has also taken during concert performances. The musical gene went somewhere.
She Wrote a Book. Did You Know That?
This tends to get buried. In 1998, Caroline collaborated with photographer Lincoln Russell on Seiji: An Intimate Portrait of Seiji Ozawa — a documented tribute to the legendary conductor who led the BSO for nearly three decades.
That’s not a vanity project. Seiji Ozawa is a figure who genuinely defined an era in American classical music. Someone had to care enough to preserve that story in a serious, lasting format.
She cared enough.
The Hessberg Scandal: When the Family Name Made Headlines for Wrong Reasons
This is the part most celebrity wife articles either skip entirely or mention in one apologetic sentence. Let’s not do that.
Albert Hessberg III — Caroline’s brother, a partner at the respected Albany firm Barclay Damon — stole more than $2 million from his clients over 12 years. We’re not talking about a single bad decision. Twelve years. He manipulated elderly clients. He delayed death distributions to dying people. One woman died of cancer before her family could access the trust money he was supposed to be managing.
Federal prosecutors didn’t mince words. They said he “betrayed the dead and defrauded the dying.”
Albert was disbarred in June 2019. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud, mail fraud, and filing false tax returns. He was sentenced to five years and eight months in federal prison.
Now here’s where Caroline enters the story. She wrote a letter to the sentencing judge — not asking him to go free exactly, but describing the brother she knew. The one who had stayed by their mother as Alzheimer’s took hold. The one who had been at their father’s side through cancer. “He would walk on hot coals for them,” she wrote about his dedication to his own family.
James Taylor also wrote. Called Albert’s actions incomprehensible given the man he knew. Said the situation had “rocked our world.”
And then they both paid. $1.7 million, out of their own pocket, directly to Albert’s victims. Restitution that the federal government required — but that the Taylors fulfilled almost entirely on their own.
The FBI field office specifically noted the emotional impact of the case. One victim’s family couldn’t access funds to pursue cancer treatment. That woman died.
Caroline didn’t cause this. She had no part in it. But she stood in the mess of it, wrote a letter for her brother, and then wrote a very large check so that real people got made as whole as money can make anyone.
That’s a woman with a moral compass, even when it points in multiple directions at once.
What Fame Actually Looks Like When You Deliberately Avoid It
Caroline has no verified social media presence. None that’s active or confirmed. In an age where celebrities’ dogs have Instagram accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers, she has chosen the radical act of simply not being online.
James Taylor, on the other hand, does post — and he frequently includes her. A hiking photo in Mount Charleston. A throwback at the Rainforest Fund gala. Birthday posts. Normal married-couple content, just from a man who once sold over 100 million records.
She’s seen at his concerts occasionally singing backup. She’s shown up at the Oscars, the Kennedy Center Honors, the MusiCares Gala. But she doesn’t give interviews. She doesn’t chase profiles. The articles about her essentially recycle the same ten facts and then pad the rest with speculation.
This is worth noting, not because it’s saintly, but because in celebrity culture, the people who refuse to perform their own lives loudly tend to make everyone else deeply uncomfortable. We’re not used to it.
The Songs. Because Yes, He Wrote About Her.
“Caroline, I See You” is about her specifically. Written as a love song, not an analysis.
“On the 4th of July” — born from their first date the night before Independence Day.
“You and I Again” — Taylor described it as a piano piece he’d been playing for over 20 years before it became a proper song. He played it constantly. Caroline allegedly went a little nuts since she heard it so frequently. He later admitted she didn’t even know it was about her until he told her.
That detail is charming in a way that feels completely genuine. A man quietly writing about the love of his life for two decades without announcing it. And she’s in the next room thinking will he please play something else.
What Is She Actually Worth?
Nobody knows precisely. Her net worth is unconfirmed. James Taylor is frequently estimated at around $80 million. Caroline’s independent career — journalism, 25 years at the BSO, the book — would be worth something on its own, though the numbers vary wildly depending on which site you read.
She came from a wealthy family to begin with. Her father was a senior law partner in Albany. That background doesn’t disappear.
The $1.7 million restitution payment suggests they had the liquidity to make a very substantial charitable-adjacent decision without apparently destroying their financial situation.
Final Words
Here’s my honest read on Caroline Smedvig.
She’s someone who built a serious career in a field that doesn’t get enough respect — arts administration. She didn’t get to the top of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s communications department because she married well. She got there before any of that.
She chose privacy not as a performance of modesty but apparently as a genuine preference. That’s increasingly rare. Fame culture rewards people who perform vulnerability publicly, who share the dark moments in real time, who turn personal pain into content. Caroline has done none of that.
Even the brother scandal — she could have distanced herself. She wrote a letter defending him and then helped pay back his victims. That’s messy, real, human behavior. Not a PR strategy.
And James Taylor, for his part, has been quietly devoted. Over 25 years. He was in his 50s when they married, coming off two prior marriages and a well-documented struggle with addiction earlier in his life. With Caroline, something stabilized.
She’s not a mystery because she’s hiding something interesting. She’s a mystery because she decided her actual life was more important than the story people wanted to tell about it.
That, honestly, is a statement most people can’t make — and wouldn’t know how to live with if they tried.
FAQs
1. Who is Caroline Smedvig?
She’s a former journalist and PR director who spent 25 years running communications for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She’s also James Taylor’s wife since 2001 and the mother of their twin sons.
2. When was Caroline Smedvig born?
May 31, 1953, in Albany, New York. Multiple sources give 1957 as an alternate birth year — the 1953 figure is cited most consistently by credible outlets and corroborates her graduation timeline.
3. Why does she go by “Kim”?
She’s known informally as “Kim Smedvig” or “Kim Taylor” among close circles. The nickname appears to have stuck alongside her professional name. The origins aren’t publicly documented.
4. Was Caroline Smedvig married before James Taylor?
Yes. She was married to Rolf Thorstein Smedvig, the principal trumpeter of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They married in December 1980 and later divorced. Rolf remarried and continued his career until his death in April 2015.
5. How did she meet James Taylor?
At Symphony Hall in Boston in 1993, during a concert where Taylor performed with John Williams and the Boston Pops. She was the PR director at BSO. They didn’t date immediately — he was still married. Their first date was July 3, 1995.
6. Did James Taylor write songs about her?
Yes. “Caroline, I See You,” “On the 4th of July,” and “You and I Again” are all connected to her. The last one was a piano piece he played for over two decades without her knowing it was written about her.
7. How did she and James have children?
Through surrogacy. Caroline could not carry children naturally. Their twin sons, Rufus and Henry, were born in April 2001 — the same year they married, in February.
8. What is the controversy with her brother?
Her brother Albert Hessberg III, a former attorney at a prominent Albany law firm, was convicted of stealing more than $2 million from clients over 12 years. He pleaded guilty in 2019 and was sentenced to nearly six years in prison. Caroline and James Taylor paid $1.7 million in restitution directly to the victims.
9. Is Caroline Smedvig on social media?
No verified or active presence has been confirmed on any platform. James Taylor occasionally features her on his own accounts.
10. What is Caroline Smedvig’s net worth?
Unconfirmed. Estimates range from several hundred thousand to over a million dollars based on her career in journalism and the BSO. James Taylor’s net worth is estimated at around $80 million.
11. Does she still have a role at the Boston Symphony Orchestra?
Yes. After leaving her staff position in 2004, she transitioned to serving as a trustee of the organization — a governance role, not a day-to-day staff position.
12. Has she written anything?
Yes. She co-authored Seiji: An Intimate Portrait of Seiji Ozawa (1998) with photographer Lincoln Russell — a book documenting the life and career of the BSO’s longtime conductor Seiji Ozawa.
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